News and Events

Strategic Environmental Assessment in Rahovec

The Municipality of Rahovec is in the process of drafting the Municipal Development Plan (MDP) with the professional support from UN-Habitat's MuSPP. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), required by Kosovo Law, is being drafted by external consultant Kadri Tillemann. Ms. Tillemann conducted a workshop with municipal officers on the 4th of October 2012 with the focus on engaging the municipality of Rahovec in the SEA process in a participatory manner, while developing capacity building on the domain of environmental assessment and methods. The themes addressed included the need to identify the main data gaps in the MDP, presentation of environmental issues of the MDP, and a first approach to the identification of objectives, targets and indicators within the SEA process.

Although Kosovo's  Law on SEA does not require a scoping report, it was stated during the presentation that such a report is useful in addressing the main "objectives", "goals" or "strategic aims" in the early stages of the SEA process. It was noted that in drafting of the scoping report it is useful to collect and report on relevant international, national and local plans, objectives and environmental standards. It is also helpful to identify reasonable alternatives required by the SEA Directive for the national legislation, and to develop draft environmental objectives (similar or derived from MDP).

According to the analyses undertaken by the consultant, the environmental issues of Rahovec MDP should develop around three main areas:  1) Mineral Resources, 2) Soils and 3) Solid Waste.  The first environmental objective considered should include the issue of Water, namely regarding the quality and accessibility of drinking water. The second issue is related to the protection of Soils and will inter-relate to settlement expansion, and also to contamination from farming activities and domestic sewage. The third issue to explore closely is the question of the management system for Solid waste. This issue is being addressed at the national level, but should also require some measures to be taken at the local level, as solid waste can be more sustainably managed, for example by introducing some sorting activities and composting. Another consideration is to foresee a transit station for solid waste and the suggestion was introduced to map some specific sites and define a realistic plan for solid waste management. A first debate took place around these proposed three major themes.

Finally, some examples of environmental objectives were introduced, such as "to increase the water quality and service" or "reduction of illegal dumping sites" and a brief explanation of how these can be measured by specific indicators and targets. It was proposed to further address this issue at a later stage of the SEA when the Environmental scenarios should also be analysed.

Contacts

UN-HABITAT Pristina Office:

Ministries Building "Rilindja", 10th Floor
10000 Prishtina, Kosovo
Phone: +381 38 200 32611
Fax: +381 38 224 122
E-mail: info@unhabitat-kosovo.org

Home > Media Center > News and Events